Mauritania

When your sinking in sand....stop driving

Throughout Morocco we have heard a few different opinions on Mauritania, ranging from ‘get through as fast as you can’ to ‘stay as long as you can’ from two French girl campers.

We stayed at a hotel near the Moroccan border to ensure an early arrival at the crossing the following day. When we pulled into the Moroccan customs, the Africa maps on Proper Job attracted some attention from the border police. Why; because they still showed the Western Sahara as an independent country. Clearly it is a sensitive issue in these parts, and eventually we settled the matter by allowing them to write Morocco over Western Sahara.

Formalities on the Morocco side took almost three hours and once completed (plus one request for money) we proceeded in convoy for about 5km over a rough road through no man’s land to the Mauritania border. Here the formalities took only ninety minutes and we found the personnel helpful and professional. Once through we got car insurance and headed to Nouadibou to find a camp site and to obtain permits for the National Park Banc D’Anguin. On the border we met a local who offered to show us to a recommended campsite and to help us with the permits. Being a Friday we had to move quickly as all things close at 2.30pm for the day. Once we arrived in Nouadibou we obtained the permits after a trip to two different tourism offices and then headed to Camp Abba, which is nicely located down town. We thought we would also pick up the Carte Bruin and SETA which would cover us all the way to Angola.

The following day we headed southwards towards the national park, having been told to drive approx 160km to Chemi at which point, turn right into the national park. We followed the main road but found the right turn as indicated on the GPS not exactly accurate. After asking some military officials where the turning was we headed off in the general direction of Camp Arkeiss on Cape Tagarit. Believe me, these desert tracks are very difficult, if not impossible, to follow and we were soon ‘off-piste’. We negotiate our way for 40km through a desert like landscape, stopping after only 8 km into the journey when Proper Job overheated after a particularly difficult stretch. I had a nagging feeling that this was not going to be an easy drive. We decided to lower the tyre pressure considerably to help us navigate the thick sand. We persevered and eventually found Camp Arkeiss where five other groups were encamped. All were Mauritanian except for one French group. I was intrigued by the presence of a goat by one of the Mauritanian tents and assumed it was brought along for milk. The camp site is in a very nice setting on this remote coast which has only two or three fishing villages. Bank D’Anguin is a UNESCO site because of its prolific bird life. Millions of birds stop here on their migration from Senegal on their way to Spain. Unfortunately, they had gone before we arrived. I met some locals fishing from the rocks and found out that this coastline is extremely good for fishing....darn; I wish I had bought my rod. Casting out 20 metres they were catching nice tuna and other fish. This coast is also windy, so we set up camp in the most sheltered spot we could find. It did not help that much....but there was worse to come. The area is very picturesque and untouched because of its remoteness which, means it is only accessible by 4x4. The following morning we planned to head southwards along a route marked on both the official park map and Tracks4Africa. I casually looked for the goat and saw that it was now strung up and was being skinned....so much for the milk. We set off and yet again after a while the track disappeared under a sea of sand and the going became quite tough. We eventually came across a sign post indicating a left turn towards Mamghar, our intended destination at the southern end of the park. We took this route for about 3km before we plunged into a deep sand-drift and became well and truly stuck. It’s now that I started to realise how isolated we really were out here. You don’t see any other vehicles or people, just a few old tracks now and again. After a few attempts in low range with front and rear diffs locked it was time to open up the roof box and use the shovels and sand mats. Luckily, there was a hard patch of sand a few metres in front of us and I figured if we could get to that then we could use it as a launching pad to gather momentum back along the 3km to the sign post. Now for the digging – very glad I joined the Perranporth Life Saving Club for swimming training to get fit ! The sand-mats again did the trick and we got back to the sign post and turned southwards to follow the longer coastal route. Eventually we came across a village and asked for directions to Mamghar and a local hopped on his quad and took us to another signpost and pointed us in land again. Ahead of us lay another set of low lying dunes which stood between us and the eastern side of the peninsula we were on, and needed to cross to resume our journey southwards. We made quite good progress over this stretch when we just missed a left turn and once again ploughed into a deep sand drift. Dam......out with the shovels and sand mats again. Sometime later and after sweating buckets, we were ready to try getting unstuck .We were still probably only about half way to our destination and I had visions of many digs ahead. Ummmm, and I gave up my comfortable life in Canada and Cornwall !. There must be a reason for it, or is it just the ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen Syndrome’. This time though, there was no back-tracking so we had to do enough digging to be able to pick up enough momentum to get through this section. Again Proper Job was starting to overheat, but we got through and pulled over on the coast for a breather.

Another 40km of driving along the coast and we arrived at Camp Mamghar, having driven a total of 150km in 6 hours. There was little shelter from the wind at this camp and after some discussions with the camp manager on the best route to get out of the park and back to the main road to Nouakchott, we set up camp. The manager then asked for payment for providing this information, which I refused and told him it was his job to help guests. I must say though we did not experience much of this in Mauritania and generally found the people very helpful. That night was pretty much a sleepless one with the wind rattling the tent to the point that I wondered if it would be damaged. With my very limited understanding of French, I had gathered from the camp manager that we should leave at 5am in the morning because the final 50km route was along the beach and you could only access it at low tide. I pondered our two options; either we turn back along the route we had just come knowing that we could eventually get out or give the beach route a go early morning risking getting seriously stuck. I was up at 5am and it was still pitch black. It was hard enough to follow tracks in day light and there was no way I was going to try it in the dark. With a glimmer of sun rise at 6am we decided to push off for the beach route, following a track around the small fishing village towards the general direction we had to go. Soon we came across an ominous looking sandy stretch which led to an impassable sand dune. We turned around and headed back towards the village looking for another track nearer the beach. The sun was now rising and we found a track that led onto the beach. Here the sand seemed quite firm, and after checking how far our wheels were sinking in we headed southwards down the beach into the rising sun. There were millions of crabs on the beach, which was about 15 metres wide. There were also many birds and turtles along the way and photo opportunities were numerous. Unfortunately, as we had lost time we had to push on so did not have time to stop. We drove at speed down the beach along the water line, passing only one fishing village along the way. The sand was firm and driving at 50kmph we made good progress towards the village where a road headed inland towards tarmac. Surprisingly we had no issues along the beach and made it to the tarmac to great relief. It is along this stretch that travellers have lost vehicles to the sea by getting the tides wrong.

Having reached the tarmac road we turned south towards Nouakchott and Auberge Sahara, which had been recommended by a couple of French travellers we had met in Morocco, and is run by an extremely helpful lady called Kania. We were both quite tired from the last two days on the remote Mauritanian coast and were thankful for a nice hot shower and an omelette breakfast. We then cleaned Proper Job as best we could, re-arranged the roof box and swept out the tent and aired the sleeping bags. Auberge Sahara also has a washing machine so we decided to give our clothes a thorough wash in preparation for our excursion into Senegal in a day or so. Auberge Sahara is a popular stop-over for overlanders, and we met a Danish couple who had been teaching in Liberia and were driving back to Europe. They had been through Mali and said how hot it is there and how they had had problems with their car air conditioning. This got me thinking again about our own problems so I went to a local Toyota garage that Paul at Footloose 4x4 had emailed details of to me. Arriving at the garage, I stressed that we needed R12 gas, and they pointed me to a mechanic shop. To my surprise they had R12, and after some help with translation from English speaking Malian, we all went back to Auberge Sahara with the gas to sort the problem out. The mechanic checked the system, much more thoroughly than any of the mechanics I had gone to in Morocco and said the problem was low gas pressure and the filter. Back down town for the new filter and within an hour he had it fitted and filled with R12 gas. He assured me that it was now fixed and I learned that he is the mechanic for the Mauritania President’s vehicles.....so who am I to doubt him ! Anyway, we will see, but I have now done everything I can to prepare for the heat of Mali and Burkino Faso.

Next thing was to go to the Mali Embassy to apply for our visas. The staff was extremely helpful and told us to return at 3pm to pick them up. Visas in hand we were ready to head to Senegal. We left early morning driving 150km along the main road then turned westwards for 80km along a dirt road to the Diamma border crossing. Our plan was to cross and drive to the Zebrabar beach camp just south of St Louis.